Jack Parry not only broke a Derby County club record he also lit up the dressing room

Jack Parry (far left) and Ray Young watch Liverpool centre-forward Dave Hickson get in a header at Anfield in October 1960. The other Liverpool player is Roger Hunt, a World Cup winner six years later.

When Derby County trainer Ralph Hann ran on to the Baseball Ground pitch to check an apparently concussed Jack Parry one afternoon in the 1950s, he doused the Rams forward with cold water, then asked him if he knew where he was.

Hann probably didn’t see the funny side at the time, but the reaction was typical of the man who, for 20 years was known as the Rams court jester.

The late Geoff Barrowcliffe once recalled: “If you’d chucked Jack Parry on stage, he would have still been a star. He was a good player, but as a comedian, I don’t think you could beat him. He was so quick. I’ll give you an instance. We were going down to Bristol City on the bus and the tyre blew, so they rang through for another bus. It arrived and we resumed the journey but the brakes were a little bit faulty and we came round a corner and there’s a Post Office van. Reg Matthews was sitting in front with me. Jack Parry was a bit further back up the bus.

The Rams pictured with the Third Division North championship shield in 1957. Jack Parry is extreme left of the front row.

“Anyway, the bus driver puts the brakes on and we hit the Post Office van. Its back doors flew open and Jack shouted down to Reg Matthews: ‘See if there’s any letters for me, Reg!’”

But back to his football. Having started his career in the days of Raich Carter and Billy Steel, and ended it when Kevin Hector was with the club, Jack Parry not only broke a Derby club record for League appearances, he also lit up the Rams’ dressing room during some dark days in the club’s history.

And 50 years ago this month, he embarked on what was to be his best-ever season, despite it ending in misery, thanks to the close attentions of a big full-back from Grimsby Town.

Born in July 1931, Parry was one of a well-known Derby family of footballers. His younger brothers, Cyril and Ray, both played League football, Cyril for Notts County, while Ray played 544 games for Bolton, Blackpool and Bury as well as being capped for England from every level from schoolboy to full international. Two other brothers, Reg and Glynn, were well-known non-League footballers.

Jack was playing for Derby Boys when he caught the Rams’ attention, and joined them as an amateur in 1947. On his 17th birthday in 1948, he signed professional forms, and the following April, still only 17, deputised for Steel against Aston Villa and scored in the 2-2 draw at the Baseball Ground.

Jack Parry, goalscorer and joker.

Unfortunately for the youngster, he had to learn his trade in a declining Derby team. By the early 1950s, the Rams were in free-fall, dropping from the First Division to the Third Division North in only three seasons. The great names had either retired or moved on, to be replaced by some mediocre performers as the Rams board followed a policy of make-do-and-mend.

It was an irony that Jack Parry’s true worth wasn’t fully appreciated until Derby had slumped so low. But in 1955-56, he proved a fine goalscoring foil for Jesse Pye and Alf Ackerman as the Rams sailed off into hitherto uncharted waters.

His first-time shooting was often quite breathtaking and brought him a hat-trick against Darlington in December 1955. Before the home match against promotion rivals, Grimsby Town, in March 1956, Parry had scored 27 goals in 36 League and Cup matches that season.

Then a controversial challenge by the Mariners full-back, Ray de Gruchy, left Parry with a badly injured back. He was sidelined for the rest of the season and without his goals, the Rams watched Grimsby take the only promotion place.

Tommy Powell, another member of that Third Division North team, sadly no longer with us, recalled: “We would definitely have gone up if Jack hadn’t been injured. Up to then he was scoring goals, right, left and centre.”

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The injury was to trouble him for a long time, and Parry managed only 18 appearances the following season – he still scored seven goals – as Derby won the title. In the Second Division, however, he was an automatic choice, scoring 27 League goals in the next two seasons.

Like Ray Young and Geoff Barrowcliffe, Parry was reared in the company of class players, and if they played out their careers during some of the Rams’ less conspicuous days the trio always looked the better footballers on any pitch, always comfortable on the ball.

By the beginning of the 1960s, Parry embarked on a new career as a wing-half, skippering the side and leading a spirited, and successful, battle against relegation in the weather-hit season of 1962-63.

Into his mid-30s, Parry could not keep going in the arduous midfield role, although he kept himself remarkably fit. The last of his 517 League and Cup appearances came as a substitute at Ipswich in October 1965; he had scored 110 goals.

Yet he might just have added to his tally. In May 1967, after sacking manager Tim Ward, the directors, selecting the team to meet Plymouth in the last game of the season, asked Parry to play. After 18 months of reserve-team football, he declined.

Jack Parry ended his career with Boston United, and worked at Rolls-Royce. His interest in football – at least in Derby County – seemed to evaporate. Some felt that he was bitterly disappointed at the way the club treated him after Brian Clough arrived.

Whatever the reason, the Rams could have done with his sense of humour – and his goals – these last few years.